Felix Rippy Family Law Blog on Lawyers.com

Conflicts checks and Williamson and Travis County Motions to Disqualify

Tuesday, June 14, 2011 by Felix Rippy

Almost every lawyer has had someone say, "you cannot represent my wife in our divorce, you did our wills!" Wrong. (citations omitted)  Or, you cannot represent my wife in your divorce, you represented me in my DWI.  Wrong again. (citations omitted)  But what about, "you cannot represent my wife in my motion to modify because your partner represented me in our divorce" ?  It would seem obvious that a modification is by definition a different matter only dealing with things that arose after the divorce, and that even if it weren't a partner would actually have to have real confidential information that might harm a (former) client, not just the supposition of or speculation about such evidence.  But watch it...the natural response of "if you think there's a conflict, file a motion to disqualify" is dangerous...the former client of a partner can file a grieveance if the motion to disqualify happens to be granted.  In short, if anyone files a motion to disqualify you as a lawyer, you had better simply agree to it! 
Posted at 12:21 PM
Topic: Family Law
Lawyers.com Blog

Lawyers.comSM Blog

Get an inside view of
Lawyers.com

Blog Topics

Bloggers

Archives

Recent...